“I, for one, will be convinced that the Canada we know and love will be gone forever. But, then, Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realized Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.”
Testifying before the Canadian Senate in opposition to the Meech Lake Accord (1988-03-30)
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Pierre Trudeau 53
15th Prime Minister of Canada 1919–2000Related quotes

Statement in Calgary, Alberta, a region where the Liberals have long struggled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_alienation to gain electoral foothold, on the province's Heritage Day holiday, August 3, 2015. As quoted in Macleans https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/exorcising-the-ghost-of-trudeau-past/ discussing the subject of the lingering influence of the Trudeau name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Energy_Program in Western Canada.

“to love means to realize there is a time to let the beloved one go”
Source: Man and Boy
Fortune, My Foe (1949).

Ignorance of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

repeated comment during 1988 Federal Election campaign in opposition to the Free Trade Agreement.( http://archives.cbc.ca/programs/730-6569/page/5/)

“My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them.”
On leaving England at age seven.
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

Caen, Herb. Herb Caen's San Francisco, 1976-1991, page 159. Chronicle Books, 1992. ISBN
Attributed

“I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize.”
"Emily Webb"
Our Town (1938)
Context: I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back — up the hill — to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by Grover's Corners... Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking... and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths... and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.... Do human beings ever realize life while they live it? — Every, every minute?... I'm ready to go back... I should have listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people.